


Ezekiel's Boyfriend

by penoftruthiness



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Abuse, F/M, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Self-Deprecation but also aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:06:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9090805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penoftruthiness/pseuds/penoftruthiness
Summary: Jake just...really doesn't like Ezekiel's new boyfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for depiction of emotional abuse and some offscreen physical abuse.

Honestly, he's not even the first one to get upset about it. Cassandra is the first. Which is ridiculous. They all agreed to never get involved in each other's personal lives. But then again, he'd agreed to never leave his hometown. And look where that got him.

 

It's a laid-back, relaxed day at the Library. Yesterday they dealt with Newton's Apple starting an apple pelting revolution of sorts in Cleveland, so he guesses the Library is trying to give them some downtime, especially since Eve is still walking around with a bandage around her head. He's still chuckling at her loud protests of not even liking apples in the midst of a bunch of flying fruit.

Jake is taking the extra free time to go through some art history textbooks he's found, gradually getting enraged at the factual inaccuracies he's finding. This is what the next generation of art historians is learning?

"Hey Jake?"

He hears Cassandra's voice floating over the pile of books he's been hiding behind for the last several hours.

He mumbles a greeting to Cassandra, whose face suddenly pops up over the stack of Renaissance history books. She has to be standing on her toes; the stack is at least six feet tall. He only has a few moments to be amused before noticing how upset Cassandra looks. Jake immediately jumps into panic mode.

"Is the sunroom open again? Did Ezekiel burn down the kitchen?" He slams closed the book he was looking at and stands up, scattering the loose pages that were lying on his desk onto the floor.

Cassandra holds her hands up in front of her in a placating manner, managing a weak smile. Jake feels his panic recede a little bit. He rubs the edge of his textbook with his thumb. "No, it's not a library emergency, Jake. It is about Ezekiel though."

Jake sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. "What did he do this time?" It was always something with Jones. They could never have a normal day if he was around.

Cassandra shrugs her shoulders. "Honestly, it would be easier to just show you."

 

She leads him through the annex and out the front door. They hop in the truck outside, Cassandra taking the driver's seat. Jake almost turns to ask her where they're heading, but thinks better of it when he sees how tight her lips are pressed together. He's expecting a long road trip, but when she pulls off the road five minutes later in front of a rundown bar, he does turn to her in disbelief.

"Cassandra, I'm pretty sure he's old enough to drink. And even if he's not, he can definitely steal an ID easy enough." How old is Ezekiel, anyway? Do any of them actually know?

 

Eve probably knows. Eve knows everything.

But Cassandra just shakes her head, nodding towards the back as she takes a seat at the bar. Jake follows her line of sight to see...Ezekiel sitting. With some guy.

He raises an eyebrow at Cassandra. "Seriously? We're here to watch him hang out with a friend?"

Cassandra rolls her eyes at him and nods in their direction again. "Not just a friend, Jake."

Suddenly the guy Ezekiel's sitting with reaches out and puts his hand on Ezekiel's wrist. Ezekiel smiles and looks down at the table and...

"Well that's cute." Jake considers the guy. He's reasonably attractive, maybe a little older than Ezekiel but not much. He's got floppy brown hair, a little scruff, reasonably well built...

"Ok, Cass. You got me. What's the problem?"

Cassandra's face looks just as confused as Jake feels. "Honestly, I thought he would have stolen the guy's wallet by now. I was bringing you in as a guardian in case a fight broke out. At least it would have been less embarrassing than asking Eve." She shrugs.

That seems pretty reasonable. And now that she brought it up, Jake is pretty concerned too. He decides to order a whiskey and see how this all turns out.

 

But, half an hour later, the guy grabs Ezekiel's phone and types a number in. He places it back on the table, winks at Ezekiel, and leaves.

Which is cool. That's probably the most success Jake's seen him have with anyone, man or woman, since he met the guy. For all the talk, Ezekiel doesn't seem to actually get much action.

As soon as his new friend has left, Ezekiel turns around to glare at them, and Cassandra chokes on the cocktail she's been sipping. Their favorite thief makes his way over to the bar while Jake and Cassandra try to appear as inconspicuous as possible. Which is hard. They were clearly just spying.

"So. I guess I'm being stalked now." Ezekiel says, bouncing on his heels. He looks full of energy, which isn't unusual, but usually followed an announcement of imminent food.

"No, we were just..." Jake flounders for an excuse. Why hadn't he and Cassandra thought of one while they were sitting here?

"We heard this place had some really great fries." Cassandra blurts out, forcing a smile.

Ezekiel looks at the bar in front of them, clearly lacking any fries. "Uh-huh."

"Look, buddy, we were just..." Jake thinks about lying and saying they were just happy for him, but he knows Ezekiel would see through that in a second. "We were worried he was going to punch you."

Ezekiel scrunches up his nose at that. "Really? You think I can't talk to someone for five minutes without them wanting to deck me?"

Jake shrugs. "Well, I want to hit you 98% of the time we're together. It only makes sense."

Ezekiel rolls his shoulders, taking a few steps back from the bar. "Well, whatever. Can you give me a ride home? It's kinda far to walk."

Cassandra smiled at him and nodded. "Of course! We just finished our...fries."

"Of course you did." Ezekiel says, rolling his eyes.

 

It isn't because Ryan's a guy. Jake is sure of that. He knows he's from some backwoods town in the middle of nowhere, and that's what people expect from him, so he makes sure to treat Ezekiel's...thing with the guy exactly like he would if Ezekiel were dating a girl.

Which is to say he completely ignores it.

It's been going on for two weeks or so now, and he's noticed that the dates have gotten a lot more frequent. Still, he doesn't say anything to Ezekiel or anyone else whenever he notices the thief make a completely see through excuse and pop out the front door.

That is, until he quite literally almost runs into the guy on his way out to get some gas. The truck has been running low ever since Cassandra had found that weird magic shop nearby. She's been spending some time there every other day, but apparently it's still his job to fill the tank. He's in the middle of considering how unfair this team was sometimes when he runs into something tall and solid.

"Oh! Sorry about that, dude." Ryan is standing right in front of him, holding onto his shoulder until they both recover from the impact. The guy has nice abs, apparently. Jake would be in a much better position to appreciate them if his shoulder wasn’t hurting. "Didn't see you there."

Jake shakes his head, trying to get his breath back. "Didn't see you either. Don't worry about it."

Ryan smiles at him. "So you're Ezekiel's..."

Jake frantically tries to think of a good word to describe 'guy who he annoys constantly'. He ends up going with "Coworker."

"Ah." Ryan nods, apparently accepting it. It's not technically a lie. "Good to meet someone else who knows him."

That's confusing. "What do you mean?" Jake asks, suddenly finding himself with an opportunity to needle out some information about Jones from someone other than the guy himself. Ezekiel talked a lot, but the amount information he's gotten out of the kid (that actually seems reliable) is pretty thin.

Ryan shrugs. "He just doesn't seem to know anyone. It's kinda weird, but I guess I see why."

Jake is trying to puzzle that one out when Ryan looks over his shoulder.

"Oh hello...Stone." Ezekiel says, seeming a little unsure of himself. His gaze is flicking between the two of them as he gets closer. He stops a few feet away from Jake.

"Jones."

Ezekiel coughs. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting gas. Clearly you can't be bothered to do it."

"Because I never use the car!" And just like that, they're off on another argument.

Ryan chuckles, distracting them from what was on the verge of becoming a heated discussion. "Don't worry, Ezekiel. We just met. Haven't even gotten to ask about what you really do yet."

Ezekiel ducks his head, which is pretty endearing. "I mean...it's secret work. For the government." He looks at Jake, begging him to help.

Jake clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. I couldn't tell you much about it either. Because it's secret."

Ryan nods at that. "Of course. Well, I won't make you put up with Ezekiel any more. We've got a movie to see."

Jake goes to chuckle at the joke, but he stops short. It's weird. Clearly it's just good-natured ribbing, like anybody would do with their boyfriend, but Ryan almost doesn't seem like he's joking. Ezekiel doesn't seem bothered, looking excited at the prospect of a movie. But Ryan is looking at Ezekiel in a calculating sort of way, almost frowning. It's odd.

As the two walk away towards Ryan's car (a black Lexus, he notes with a small hint of envy), Jake wonders why his skin is crawling.

 

It happens a couple more times in the next few weeks. In between Flynn showing up again, making Eve very distracted, them getting in several more life or death situations, and Flynn leaving again, which makes Eve and the Library quieter than usual, Ryan keeps showing up every other day, picking up Ezekiel and whisking him off who knows where.

Jake doesn't know why he's doing it, but he starts making it a habit to be doing some sort of errand almost every time Ryan shows up. Sometimes it's running out to get soda, sometimes it's going to pick up pizza ("because the delivery fee all the way out here is _insane_ , Ezekiel!"), and he uses the gas excuse more than once, even though Cassandra found a much better magic shop in a small town in Spain to visit. He gets to exchange a few words with Ezekiel's boyfriend every time, before Ezekiel inevitably shows up, looking uncomfortable at Jake's presence.

The guy is always really polite, that's the thing. He's never anything but cordial to Jake (and Cassandra, the few times that she came along to try out a new restaurant nearby), but he almost never hears him say anything nice about Ezekiel. It's always some flippant comment about him always being late, or distracted, or (once) "not that cute, but at least he's got enthusiasm", which is the only time Jake nearly said something. The one thing that everyone in the Library could agree upon was that, despite Ezekiel being self-obsessed and occasionally obnoxious, he was cute. That was his one redeeming quality, besides being incredibly useful at times.

It was after Ryan said something about Ezekiel probably being hard to work with that he finally decided he needed to talk to someone about this. Working with Ezekiel was one of the best parts about this job. Sure he could grate on your nerves, but it was never boring with him around, and he always got the job done.

As soon as Jake strolled back in the library and tried to strike up a conversation with Jenkins with "So, about Ezekiel...", Jenkins looked up at him, snapped the book he was reading shut, and walked out of the room.

Jake blinked. Alright. Not Jenkins, then.

Eve was still moping about Flynn leaving again, so he decided to talk to Cassandra.

 

Cassie, as usual, was poring over a book explaining the finer intricacies of magic. Jake took a glance at the cover, but only understood a couple words, so he decided to disregard it.

He stopped for a moment to watch, caught up in watching her work. She had the cutest little squint when she was concentrating really hard on an idea, before she turned the page with less force as you'd use to bat away a fly. Her red hair curled around her ear in the most enticing way. Jake just wanted to reach out and...

He blinked and stood up straighter, not wanting to stare any longer than he already had. He knocked on the open door.

Cass glanced up at him, a smile spreading over her face immediately. "Jake, hi! I think I found the answer to the problem I was telling you about with focus points."

"Ah, yeah. I think I remember you telling me about that." Jake bit his lip. He had actually understood most of that discussion, magic being the common thing that all the librarians had to understand to some degree.

She kept smiling at him. It was damn pleasant, being looked at like that. "Did you want something?"

"Ah, yeah." Jake scratched the back of his head. How did he phrase this so he didn't sound like he was obsessed with Jones' love life? "I, uh...I just talked to Ryan again."

Cassandra nods. She still looks as sunny as she usually does, but her smile drops a little bit. "Ezekiel's boyfriend, right?"

"Yep, that's the one."

She sighs, closing her book after sticking a bookmark at her current page. Her smile is slowly fading, which makes Jake feel bad. But he really thinks that somebody should be talking about how shitty the Australian's boyfriend was. That was the sort of thing that friends talked about, right?

"You don't like him, do you?" Cassandra suddenly says.

Jake looks up at her, away from the spot on the floor he's been glaring holes in. Is he that obvious?

"I just think he's a little rude is all."

Cassandra nods again. "I know what you mean. I think you've talked to him more than I have, but even the few times I've met him...I just can't imagine anyone treating somebody they're dating that way."

Jake just about says something about the many relationships he's seen end up that way out in Oklahoma, but Cassie already looks sad enough.

She shakes her head. "I know that if a guy said any one of those things about me, I'd break up with him. And he probably says way worse to Ezekiel when they're alone if that's what he'll say to people he doesn't know well."

"It's even stranger considering Jones has got an ego the size of the Louvre." Jake starts drumming his fingers on the desk. "You would think someone who thinks that highly of himself wouldn't be with anyone who didn't worship the ground he walked on, you know?"

Cassandra gives him a Look, which feels simultaneously judgmental and pitying. Jake doesn't like it at all. "Do you really believe all that stuff he says? 'I'm awesome' and all?"

Jake shrugs, not really understanding what she's getting at. "I never really thought about it."

"I really think all that stuff is more for our benefit than his." She smiles sadly. Jake can sort of see where she's coming from. He guesses. Jones certainly has come through for them in a whole lot more situations than he'd ever expected at the beginning of this.

"So." He says, nervously tapping his fingers again. "What do we do?"

Cassandra is clearly thinking hard, her brow scrunched up from the effort. "I don't know. I definitely don't think we should talk to Ezekiel about it. Unless you want to deal with that conversation."

Jake imagines himself saying the word 'boyfriend' to Ezekiel. His brain immediately starts to panic. "Yeah, I'm not volunteering for that job." He thinks about it for a little longer. "Honestly, I wish I could just punch the guy. Jones probably wouldn't like that, though, would he?"

Cassandra giggles at that, and Jake is relieved to see some of the tension fall off her face. "He would definitely be angry. He might steal your nice cowboy hat."

They spend the next hour or so discussing the most ridiculous thing of Jake's that Ezekiel might steal and ways to defend against the inevitable theft. But they don't come any closer to solving their problem.

 

Jake shrugs off the heavy coat he's been wearing for the past 20 hours.  
"Alright, arctic tundra is officially at the top of my 'least favorite places to hunt magical items' list. It's too damn cold."

Ezekiel's teeth are still chattering as he agrees. "My fingers are still numb. No way I could open any locks right now. What sort of place has cold that breaks through wool gloves?"

"Somewhere that's evil, clearly." Eve pipes up. She's already brewing some coffee, which everyone in the room is thankful for. The sweet aroma drifts over them, and as she passes out cups, everyone warms their hands up against the freshly-brewed drinks.

Cassandra is rubbing her hands on her nose, which is bright red. "Normally I'd be worried about caffeine consumption before bed, but I know that I'm going to pass out as soon as I reach my bed either way."

Eve nods as she sips her coffee. "We all deserve a break. If any of your clipping books go off, go complain to Jenkins. He didn't have to wrestle a polar bear earlier today."

Suddenly, Ezekiel's phone buzzes. Everyone is a little more awake from the coffee, so they all start questioning him about the message.

Cassandra is definitely the most persistent. Jake would guess that she secretly loved gossip in high school. She would have been that girl who was never involved in drama, but definitely loved hearing about everyone else's. "Is it Ryan?" She stretches out his name, making it sound sickly sweet. Jake thinks Eve is a little drunk on exhaustion, because she giggles at the adolescent pestering.

Ezekiel frowns, looking at his phone. "Yeah." They all wait a beat, expecting him to explain. "Look, I gotta go."

"Really?" Jake finds himself asking. "I definitely thought we could all complain some more. I know I can."

Ezekiel shakes his head, not even bothering with some mirth, which is disturbing. The only time Jake has seen him be consistently serious was in the video game loop, and he hated that version of Ezekiel. It was so unlike the happy, carefree thief he knew. "Sorry. I'll catch up with you all tomorrow, I guess."

Ezekiel grabs his jacket and makes a quick exit from the room. Jake finds himself following, without even consciously thinking about it. He reaches out to grab one of the fleeing Australian's arms. "Really, dude? You gotta go right now?"

Ezekiel shakes Jake's hand off, looking...is that worry? "Yeah. He's outside, okay? I'll see you tomorrow. Go to bed."

As Ezekiel walks away, Jake realizes that the thief never looked him in the eyes once during that conversation.

 

He's panicking, he'll admit it. At first, he blames it on just being jittery from the coffee. But as he's pacing back and forth over the carpet in his room, glaring at the maps and photographs of artistic buildings like they had something to do with this, he realizes that it goes a lot deeper.

Jake is scared. For Ezekiel.

Which isn't a new thing - it kind of comes with the job. They're all risking their lives at least once a week, and he can't remember the last time that they all went out in the field without his heart leaping out of his chest for Cassandra or Ezekiel. Or both, which is the worst scenario to contemplate.

Jake can't imagine doing this job alone. How Flynn handled it for as long as he did is a mystery to him. Without the support of his fellow Librarians, their Guardian, and Jenkins, he would be lost.

Which makes him decide that Eve really should know what's going on - whether she wants to be involved or not.

 

When he tracks down Eve (in the kitchen, cutting up mushrooms), she looks up at him with an eyebrow cocked. Waiting. Annoyed. Jake realizes he must look serious, but he guesses she probably already knows what this is about. His conversation with Ezekiel earlier wasn't exactly subtle or private.

"I know what you're going to say." He says, holding his hands up in a (hopefully) placating way. "Librarians shouldn't get involved in each other's personal lives. Which I think is slightly ridiculous - it's clear you and Flynn are _very_ involved in each other's personal lives..."

Eve's eyebrow raises impossibly higher and she changes her grip on the knife, the handle pointing up and vaguely in Jake's direction. He switches topics. "Look, I'm worried about Ezekiel's relationship."

Eve shrugs, not losing the tension in her arms, but at least she puts the knife down. "I'm not sure why. Ezekiel is an adult. He's perfectly capable of dating whoever he wants." Her clipped tone of voice makes it very clear that she doesn't want to have this conversation.

Jake sighs. "That would be fine, except I don't think that this is a normal relationship at all. I mean, how many healthy relationships would cause a guy to act like he was earlier? All quiet and avoiding? Tell me that wasn't creepy."

Eve at least seems to consider it. "It was a pretty fast change, especially considering the post-mission high. Ezekiel usually breaks out a bag of chips or something."

"Yeah, not slink away like a dog."

She fixes him with a look. "That might just be your interpretation of the situation, Stone."

Jake shakes his head. "It's weird. You know it is." She has to have noticed. How could she have not noticed?

Eve looks down at her mushrooms and sighs. "Look, I'll be honest with you. That was weird. I don't know if it's enough to judge a whole relationship on."

"That's not all though!" Jake is feeling encouraged by even the slightest acknowledgement at the moment, so he pushes on. "His...boyfriend makes all these weird comments. This one time, Ezekiel came out and was telling me a story, and Ryan just told him to shut up, and..."

"Look, Jake." Eve says, holding up a hand. "If you just want to gossip, can you please do it with Cassandra or something? Or go bother Jenkins. I know you care, but unless you really think there's something wrong, I'm not going to be able to help. I'm not even sure what I'd do if there was."

She focuses back on her task, and Jake feels all the adrenaline rush out of his system. If he can't even get Eve to help, he has no idea what he's supposed to do.

 

It's been another week of Ezekiel being suspiciously quiet whenever he has to slink off for a date. Jake has stopped following him outside. He realizes how creepy it was, in retrospect. He really had no right to intrude on Ezekiel's dating life.

No matter how much it bothered him.

He compensated by spending more time with Cassandra. She had asked him to be her guinea pig for some new kind of spell she was trying out - something with auras. It felt kind of like bat wings were flapping all over him. It didn't hurt, so it was hard to stay still while she took whatever sort of data she was taking from this.

And tonight she's asked her out to the French restaurant nearby. Jake can definitely see himself and Cassie dating - they're near perfect for each other. She understands his occasional gruffness in between bouts of excitement over 18th century art, and he gets what she needs when she's in the middle of an episode. It would be incredibly easy to turn what they have now (a sort of pseudo-relationship, with nights out together at restaurants and shy glances without anyone coming close to uttering the word "date") into something more.

Which doesn't explain why it doesn't feel quite right.

They're strolling out of the Annex's door, Jake staring a bit at Cassandra's red dress, when they run straight into Ryan.

The guy is wearing a suit, which is odd. He's tapping his foot, staring at his watch, which is less so.

"Hello." Cassandra says, waving awkwardly. Neither of them quite know what to say.

Ryan nods at both of them. "Evening to you."

Jake tries to pretend that he's indifferent here, that he hasn't thought about this guy in days, as wrapped up as he is in this thing with Cassandra. But he remembers the bitter comment he made to Jenkins not ten minutes ago, when Ezekiel said he was going out again.

Jenkins, for his part, seemed entirely nonplussed at Jake's weird, obsessive behavior. He beats himself up for it, but only a little.

"How are you getting along?" Jake says, his voice quiet and breathy. He's breathing a little hard. Which is stupid. Control your feelings, Stone.

Ryan sighs harshly. "Would be better if we weren't running late. Honestly, it's like he wants people to dislike him."

Cassandra must feel his fingers automatically forming fists, because she's pulling on his arm even before she starts making excuses about them having a reservation. Which is bullshit, this French place isn't that nice, and 'Nowhere, Oregon' isn't a big enough town to have reservations.

As they're walking away, Jake looks back over his shoulder at Ezekiel, bounding out to meet his boyfriend. They share a short hug before walking to the car.

Jake can't breathe.

 

The next time he sees Ezekiel is two days later, after he and Cassandra had tracked down at least a hundred glowing dragonflies for a mission in North Carolina. Ezekiel had been handling a different matter up in D.C. Both of the missions had been completely successful, so there was a jovial atmosphere in the air at the Annex. Even Jenkins seemed perky. Jake figured that now was as good a time as ever to try to talk to Jones.

He gets as far as "Hey, I wanted to ask about your boy-" before Ezekiel harshly responds:

"Look, I know you and Cassandra can't seem to figure shit out, but just ask her out already if you're so jealous." The Australian spits out, still not meeting Jake’s eye.

The thief walks away as Jake tries to come up with a way to explain that Cassandra really wasn't the issue.

 

He doesn't see Ezekiel for several days after that. He gets it, sometimes they work separate missions or take up different tasks when the clippings book is being slow. Especially on a week with as little world-destroying threats as this one. But if he didn't know better, he'd say the thief was avoiding him.

He certainly wasn't avoiding Cassandra. Jake had seen them together, laughing about a joke in the kitchen or heading off to the movie theater with a freshly popped bag of popcorn. The jolt of jealousy is both expected and perplexing. He knows why he's upset about Cassandra, obviously. But what doesn't make sense is how mad it makes him to see that Ezekiel wants to spend time with people other than him.

Both of those feelings at the same time really don't make sense.

 

Then, one night, Jake's woken up at 3 AM by a loud noise.

 

Look, they all know it's kind of weird. They're all independent adults with their own hobbies and outside relationships. It's not like they're sharing rooms, either. Everyone has their own bedroom and bathroom; it's not college.

But the three junior librarians all had their own rooms at the library.

It made a lot of sense. There was no commute if your workplace was right outside your door. None of them had to worry about finding a place or paying rent. And the Library (being the Library) of course already had living spaces set up. It was hard to resist moving in.

That did mean, of course, that they had to put up with some annoyances from each other. Cassandra liked to wake up at 5 A.M. to go for a run, Jake had a habit of coming in late from bars, and Ezekiel really had no concept of an appropriate volume for music.

So when Jake hears a loud thump and some whispered cursing at three in the morning, he assumes it's par for the course. He can tell (from the cursing) that it's Ezekiel and gets excited about the prospect of joking about the guy's misfortunes.

He had writer's block on his new book and couldn't sleep anyway, so it's not like he's really missing anything by going out into the hallway.

All prospects of light ribbing fall away as soon as Jake takes a look at Ezekiel's face, which is currently staring at him in horror.

"What. Is that."

Jake is aware his voice is low and angry. Ezekiel looks more than a little frightened. That makes him feel guilty, of course, but the sight of a black eye has anger blurring his vision.

Ezekiel holds his hands out in front of him, slowly backing away (and towards his own door). "Look, mate, don't worry about it, okay?"

There's absolutely no way Jake is just going to let this go. "I'd ask you who did this, but I'm pretty sure I already know." Ezekiel's silence is all the answer he needs. "How could you let someone do this to you? What the fuck were you thinking? Is the first goddamn time?"

Jake has started waving his hands in the air, a rushing sound in his ears. He only slows down his rampage of questions when he notices Ezekiel flinching back from him.

"Shit, I'm..." He tries to reach a hand out, but Ezekiel flinches again, looking angry at himself for not being able to control his automatic reactions. Jake wishes the anger that was rushing in his ears would come back. Looking at his teammate being this scared was awful, knowing he caused it. "I'm so sorry man. That wasn't fair. Look, I'll...I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry."

Jake nearly runs back into his room, slamming the door behind him. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to slow his breathing. What was he supposed to do now?

 

If he thought that Ezekiel was avoiding him before, boy was he in for a surprise. Jake's fairly sure the thief hasn't come out of his room all day. Cassandra certainly hasn't seen him.

The one hope he has is that this is usually one of the days of every week where Ryan and Ezekiel have something planned. He hopes that pattern still holds true. He sets up a folding chair and some lemonade outside, and he waits. Cassandra must have told the others to leave him alone, because no one bothers him all day about sitting outside, waiting for someone else's boyfriend.

 

Ryan shows up around three in the afternoon. Jake stands up with no preamble and punches him. The saying "you can't fight violence with violence" (in the voice of his fifth grade teacher after Jake hit back against the kid who was bullying him for the very first time) flashes through his mind. But this guy hurt Ezekiel. He deserves a lot more than one punch.

Jake would have liked to say that he had a whole bunch of one liners ready for use on this guy. He would have liked to say he called him the piece of trash that he is. But looking at him conjures up so many feelings of disgust that he just tells him to leave. Something in his voice must have been intimidating, because Ryan scrambles out of there faster than he can blink.

 

"So...you punched him." Cassandra looks at him like she's bewildered at Jake’s existence.

"You're acting like he didn't deserve it!"

Cassandra twists up her face at that. "I'm not saying he didn't. But how do you think Ezekiel feels?"

Jake's gut drops out from underneath him, which is concerning. "I'm not sure."

They're standing around in the research room they both share with Ezekiel. Luckily, the thief isn't here, meaning they can talk about his asshole of a boyfriend with only the Library overhearing them.

Cassandra, oddly, is smiling at him. "Do you want to ask Ezekiel to go get coffee or something? I'm sure he'd appreciate it."

Jake nods. "If you think it’d help. You want to go to that place with the movie posters?"

Cassandra shakes her head. "Not me. Just you."

 

That doesn't make any sense. Not getting any answer when he knocks on Ezekiel's door, on the other hand, does.

 

 

It's several days before Jake hears anything from Ezekiel. Not just from direct conversation between the two of them, either. The kid has just stopped talking. It's eerie. Eve had actually come up to him, concerned. Apparently she couldn't get him to say anything, either.

That worried him greatly. Ezekiel really liked Eve, as much as he pretended he didn't. If he wouldn't even talk to their guardian, he probably wasn't talking to anybody.

Not that Jake could blame him. The bruise had taken several days to heal, and even if nobody had said anything, they had all noticed. Flynn was even tiptoeing around Ezekiel, making sure he didn't say anything to upset him.

It was depressing was what it was. Jake honestly didn't think he could take anymore. Until he heard some whispers coming from the kitchen when he was coming in to grab some grits (which, yes, Ezekiel, stereotypical, but he could definitely make fun of the Australian accent more, so back off).

 

"He really did that?" Cassandra says, her voice soft and stealthy, but still loud enough to hear from the crook of the hallway Jake had hid himself in.

He got enough of a glance in the room (before he realized there was a private conversation happening) to know that Ezekiel and Cassandra were bent over the counter, sharing a piece of what was probably the cake Flynn had (awkwardly) tried to apologize to Eve with.

They were currently off at Eve's apartment, probably not wearing clothes, so apparently the apology went over well enough. Plus, they left the cake, meaning that all of the other Library residents had been enjoying some double chocolate with fudge all day.

Ezekiel sighs, sounding exhausted. Jake's heart clenches a little with worry. When was the last time the kid actually slept?

"Yeah. It wasn't, like, a big deal or anything, so please don't try to pretend it wasn't. But anyway, apparently Stone went off the deep end or something at him. He Facetimed me with a broken nose and broke up with me then and there."

"Wait, wait, wait." Cassandra says. "He Facetimed you? Really?"

Jake finds himself mentally thanking Cassandra for being reasonable. Who Facetimed someone to break up with them?

Ezekiel almost completely ignores her. "I just feel shitty about it. I mean, things were kind of going downhill anyway, Ryan said that, too, but...I just wish I could have saved it, y'know?"

Jake rolls his eyes, glad that no one is around to watch him for once. If anything, he's a little proud of himself for helping end that terrible relationship. At least he doesn't have to worry about Ezekiel getting beaten up by that slimebag.

Even so, as he's walking back down the hall to his room, grits forgotten, Jake can't help thinking about how sad Ezekiel sounded.

 

Cassandra walks up to him the next day in the Annex and pokes him in the chest. It hurts a bit.

"You need to apologize to Ezekiel." She says in the most matter-of-fact, no-nonsense voice he's heard since his mother died. He's honestly taken aback.

Jake decides not to play dumb. "I honestly don't feel incredibly sorry for punching that asshole." He says this while rubbing a hand over his sore chest.

Cassandra narrows her eyes at him, making him feel like a small, poorly behaved child. "Yes, but you upset _Ezekiel_ , so you're going to apologize for that, and you're going to take him out somewhere nice and give him a fun day, because he really likes you and I think he'd enjoy it."

"Where?" He asks, feeling like an idiot.

"Anywhere!" Cassandra shouts, throwing two thumbs up behind her as she leaves. "You're both idiots, by the way!"

Jake runs a hand through his hair, feeling entirely lost.

 

Two hours of searching on the internet, he's even more lost. The only thing he's learned about how to apologize is to feel deeply sorry and to start off with regretting his actions, neither of which he could even fake. And when he tried to look up nice places to go with Ezekiel, all of the fancy French restaurants he'd considered asking Cassandra on a date to popped up. He probably can't take Ezekiel on anything close to a date at this point, considering he single handedly killed his last relationship.

At one point, though, he scrolls by an ad for a local museum and gets an idea. Jones likes aliens, right?

 

"Really?" Ezekiel is looking at him with a light in his eyes that Jake hasn't seen in weeks, so even if it were a complete lie, he's go along with whatever made Ezekiel excited.

But in this instance, they really were outside the International UFO Museum and Research Center in New Mexico.

It was kind of "out there" by Jake's standards, but judging by Ezekiel's face, it definitely was the right choice. Plus, it was only $5, so it wasn't like he was going to be put out by this or anything.

The inside of the museum is kind of insane. Jake does have to restrain himself from smirking at all of the different aliens and a couple different animatronic statues.

But, at one point, they get to a wall of photographic evidence for supposed UFOs, and Jones can tell him everything about each one of them - from location, time, and actual sighting, that he finds himself asking about most of the pictures on the board just to hear his friend talk.

In front of one of the newspaper clippings, he grabs Ezekiel's shoulder to try to show him something across the hallway, but quickly forgets about his mission when he feels the muscles moving beneath his hands. Jones, for his part, doesn't seem to mind much, continuing his rant about the part of the story they left out of the article that makes it seem more believable. Jake finds himself very glad the man doesn't move out of the way.

He finds many more excuses to touch him before they make it out of the museum.

 

Ezekiel is smirking at him over his chocolate milkshake, which is infuriating. "So, you just suddenly developed an interest in aliens, huh?"

Jake ducks his head, hoping his face doesn't give away anything. He grabs a fry off Ezekiel's plate to try to distract him.

"Hey!" Ezekiel says, looking indignant. "You can't steal from a world class thief!"

Jake cocks an eyebrow. "Some world class thief."

Ezekiel narrows his eyes at him, stealing a fry from Jake's plate to prove a point. "But seriously, dude. I know you're not a believer. So why there?"

They're sitting in a small rundown sort of diner a few blocks away from the museum. Ezekiel only wanted to go here for a "one milkshake, c'mon Stone, it'll be fine", but now of course they've ordered burgers, fries, and probably chicken fingers by the time they finally leave. Jake is worried for his cholesterol level.

He sighs, realizing that Ezekiel wasn't going to let this go anytime soon. "I knew you'd like it. Happy?"

Jake reaches for another fry (from his own plate this time) but doesn't miss the small smile Ezekiel gets on his face before he comes to his senses. The shy thing works really well on him.

"And you just wanted to do..." Ezekiel pauses for a moment, struggling for the words he wants. "Something nice for me?"

Jake runs his hand through his hair. He doesn't like this kind of questioning, never has. Growing up, he never really had to deal with a whole lot of personal issues, between his family who never talked to each other openly to his friends who he kept almost everything from. Cassandra had helped him out of his shell a bit, but he realized that he was going to have to try even harder with Ezekiel. Something about the guy put him on edge. He felt like he was walking on eggshells with him most of the time, and it was even worse now.

"Maybe I just felt like you needed it." Jake tries. Ezekiel gives him an incredibly unimpressed look. "Fine, Cassandra said I should."

"Ha! Knew she had something to do with it. You'd never do something like this on your own. What, she wasn't going to let you back in bed 'til you'd done something with me, is that it?" Ezekiel seems a lot more comfortable than a minute ago. The guy is a lot more comfortable with joking around than sincere feelings, even if Jake can sense something beneath the surface of his teasing. Was that...jealousy?

Jake took offense to both of those statements, but chose to respond to only one of them. "Cassandra and I aren't dating."

Ezekiel crosses his arms, leaning back in his seat. "Coulda fooled me." Yep, definitely jealousy.

Jake feels a little pang in his heart. Cassandra and him have been spending a lot of time together, recently, sure, but only because Ezekiel was always out anyway. Besides, he's seen the way they look at each other.

They'd probably be a lot happier together, honestly. Screw what Jake himself wants.

The conversation lulls for a few minutes after they get their burgers. Ezekiel scarfs down two before Jake even notices, and then (as predicted) orders some chicken.

Jake puts his burger down, suddenly realizing that this might be one of his only chances to really talk to Ezekiel with no one around.

"Look, uh. I'm not any good at this, so I won't try to make a speech or anything, but I'm sorry."

Ezekiel looks confused. "For what?"

That surprised Jake. He thought it was fairly obvious. "For being kind of an impulsive idiot." Ezekiel still looks lost, so he continues. "I shouldn't have punched your boyfriend. Even if he deserved it."

Ezekiel gives a small smile again, even as he's flipping back into his nervous persona. He opens his mouth a couple times and seems to think better of it before he finally responds. "It's alright. I mean, if I'm looking at it from an outside perspective, your reaction kind of makes sense."

Now Jake's lost. "What do you mean?"

Ezekiel tilts his head to the side, considering his words. "Just, if I didn't know me. And I saw some bloke walk in at night with a black eye. I'd be pretty mad too." He glances up at Jake briefly before staring back down at his (now empty) plate. "Doesn't really make sense considering we work together and all, but I guess you're kind of the white knight, hero kind of guy anyway, right?"

Jake is honestly floored. This is one of the only conversations they've ever had between the two of them that wasn't about work, and he wasn't expecting Ezekiel to be so...self deprecating. He decides he's going to cut through all of that bullshit right now. "You know what he did to you was wrong, though, no matter who you are." He leaves aside a couple of things he wants to say about how brilliant he finds the other man, because this really doesn't seem like the right time. "No one should treat someone they want to spend time with like that."

Ezekiel laughs again, but it's got no life in it. "I mean, I'm Ezekiel Jones." Jake has never heard that statement sound defeated before. "Who really wants to spend time with the world's best thief, y'know?"

Jake feels tempted to point out that they're both in a diner in New Mexico of their own free will, but he knows that's not really what Ezekiel means. He does, however, want to wring the neck of Ryan and anyone else who ever made Ezekiel feel this way about himself.

He can remember himself giving some small platitudes or something before they get up to pay, but they weren't the things he really wanted to say.

 

Jake decides to tell Cassandra that she and Ezekiel should go out. He likes Cass, too, of course he does, but Ezekiel needs her a lot more than Jake does.

Even as he's knocking on her door he's dreading having to spend time with them. Together. Holding hands without him. This was going to suck.

Cass gives him a weird look as he encourages her to go talk to Ezekiel, but she nods.

 

Later, as Jake is going through his favorite overview of the romantic period for about the fifth time, Ezekiel appears in Jake's room.

"I'm not even going to ask how you unlocked the door."

Ezekiel, of course, doesn't look ashamed at all.

"So...Cassandra came and talked to me."

Well, this was certainly unexpected. Ezekiel wasn't going to try to...ask permission or some shit, right? No, he doesn't seem the type.

Is he going to describe how their make out session went? What an ass.          

"Look, mate, I know you and Cassandra have had a thing for each other for a while now. I guess you're trying to be noble or self-sacrificing or something, but you really don't have to."

Jake shakes his head. "I'm trying to make us all happy."

Ezekiel looks at the ground, then back up at him, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I know it's bullshit. Because really who would like me, I'm not even on Cassandra's level. Or yours."

Jake is bewildered at that. "I'm not really sure what you're trying to say, pal."

Ezekiel looks at least equally confused. "Yeah, neither am I, I guess. She seems to think you...I don't know, you think _I'm_ cute or something. Which is ridiculous."

"It's not." Jake says, without even thinking.

 

 

Ezekiel is glaring at him over his menu. Which is ridiculous. And distracting.

"You're being distracting." Jake informs him, seeing Cassandra nodding in his peripheral vision.

"Jake has barely even looked at his menu. It's pretty funny." She says with an infuriating smile.

Jake turns to look at her, even as he notes Ezekiel chuckling, pretending to be engrossed in the salad dressing options.

"I don't need you helping him, you know."

Cassandra shrugs, as nonchalant as ever. "I know. But that's what makes it fun." She and Ezekiel are both laughing now. Every time their eyes meet, they just start laughing harder.

Jake rolls his eyes, noting that he's not really even annoyed. "You know...this is easier than I thought it would be."

Cassandra nods while Ezekiel grunts in agreement. "I know. I thought it would be a lot more awkward trying to date two people at one time."

"But it just kind of makes sense." Ezekiel adds.

Jake finds himself smiling at that. If he gets to spend the rest of his life hunting down strange objects with these two strange, wonderful people, he would be alright with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Guys can you imagine Jake just sitting in a folder chair under an umbrella with some lemonade, ready to fight literally everyone?
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](http://conversationslikeminefields.tumblr.com/).


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